Spelling reform is a recurring preoccupation of people in the English-speaking world. Of course, complicating the whole business is the tug of war between the two giants — British English and American English.
First, there's the thorny issue of -or versus -our in words like honour and colour. As it happens, this is a variation dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spelling enthusiasts keen to show off their scholarship decided that -or should be used for words borrowed from Latin, and -our for words from French. However, in many cases it simply wasn't clear which was the donor language and so the choice between -or or -our was hit and miss. On top of this was the problem of what to do with the English words - something like harbour got an -our spelling even though it's a native. Really, matters of etymology don't belong in questions of spelling, especially when they introduce these sorts of irregularities.
On both sides of the Atlantic there was agreement that this or-our variation wasn't desirable and it should be got rid of. But, of course, getting both sides to agree on which spelling was another matter. Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 became the arbiter of English orthography in Britain. Johnson prescribed the -our spelling. Noah Webster then published his American dictionary in 1828. Webster loved tinkering with questions of spelling reform and he opted for -or. This he did in the interests of consistency but, it has to be said, there was also a bit of linguistic chauvinism involved. As he put it, 'a difference between the English orthography and the American is an object of vast political consequence'. To be honest though, Webster's -or spelling was the more sensible choice. There is no doubt that Samuel Johnson's dictionary was an extraordinary accomplishment, but he did make a few dippy recommendations with respect to spelling. The -our spelling brought with it many inconsistencies - even one as obvious as his choice of spelling for interiour and exterior. Problems also arose with related words like humour versus humorous, labour versus laborious, vigour versus vigorous. In fact, the British themselves had already got rid of 'u' in a great many words like error, author, doctor, horror, mirror, senator, emperor, governor. So Webster was really following on from British spelling practices already in place.
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The other great tussle exists between -ise which most British writers use and -ize which is prescribed in America. This is yet another instance where American practice is following British spelling habits. The Times newspaper, the various editions of Daniel Jones' famous English Pronouncing Dictionary, even the great Oxford English Dictionary itself- indeed many other prestigious British publications prefer the -ize spelling. To quote the Oxford on this matter: -ize is 'at once etymological and phonetic'. The suffix comes to us from the Greek ending -izein. So -ize is historically more accurate, but more importantly, it better reflects the pronunciation.
Another of Webster's recommendations concerns whether or not to double 'l' in words like travelling and excelling. The British double 'l' across the board but Webster's suggestion (he wasn't the only one to recommend this) was to double the consonant only if it occurred in stressed syllables. So excel and propel would double 'l' in excelling and propelling, but travel and grovel wouldn't. This remains American spelling practice. In fact, Webster made a number of recommendations that we all follow today. But he also proposed some very radical spelling changes — dropping the 'a' in words like bread and feather, spelling soup and group with 'oo' and tongue 'tung'. Not surprisingly, they didn't catch on.
First, there's the thorny issue of -or versus -our in words like honour and colour. As it happens, this is a variation dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spelling enthusiasts keen to show off their scholarship decided that -or should be used for words borrowed from Latin, and -our for words from French. However, in many cases it simply wasn't clear which was the donor language and so the choice between -or or -our was hit and miss. On top of this was the problem of what to do with the English words - something like harbour got an -our spelling even though it's a native. Really, matters of etymology don't belong in questions of spelling, especially when they introduce these sorts of irregularities.
On both sides of the Atlantic there was agreement that this or-our variation wasn't desirable and it should be got rid of. But, of course, getting both sides to agree on which spelling was another matter. Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 became the arbiter of English orthography in Britain. Johnson prescribed the -our spelling. Noah Webster then published his American dictionary in 1828. Webster loved tinkering with questions of spelling reform and he opted for -or. This he did in the interests of consistency but, it has to be said, there was also a bit of linguistic chauvinism involved. As he put it, 'a difference between the English orthography and the American is an object of vast political consequence'. To be honest though, Webster's -or spelling was the more sensible choice. There is no doubt that Samuel Johnson's dictionary was an extraordinary accomplishment, but he did make a few dippy recommendations with respect to spelling. The -our spelling brought with it many inconsistencies - even one as obvious as his choice of spelling for interiour and exterior. Problems also arose with related words like humour versus humorous, labour versus laborious, vigour versus vigorous. In fact, the British themselves had already got rid of 'u' in a great many words like error, author, doctor, horror, mirror, senator, emperor, governor. So Webster was really following on from British spelling practices already in place.
[...]
The other great tussle exists between -ise which most British writers use and -ize which is prescribed in America. This is yet another instance where American practice is following British spelling habits. The Times newspaper, the various editions of Daniel Jones' famous English Pronouncing Dictionary, even the great Oxford English Dictionary itself- indeed many other prestigious British publications prefer the -ize spelling. To quote the Oxford on this matter: -ize is 'at once etymological and phonetic'. The suffix comes to us from the Greek ending -izein. So -ize is historically more accurate, but more importantly, it better reflects the pronunciation.
Another of Webster's recommendations concerns whether or not to double 'l' in words like travelling and excelling. The British double 'l' across the board but Webster's suggestion (he wasn't the only one to recommend this) was to double the consonant only if it occurred in stressed syllables. So excel and propel would double 'l' in excelling and propelling, but travel and grovel wouldn't. This remains American spelling practice. In fact, Webster made a number of recommendations that we all follow today. But he also proposed some very radical spelling changes — dropping the 'a' in words like bread and feather, spelling soup and group with 'oo' and tongue 'tung'. Not surprisingly, they didn't catch on.
Adapted from Blooming English by Kate Burridge (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
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